Tag: Byzantine mosaics

Irresistible mosaic birds I cant resist little mosaic birds from ancient sites. They keep popping up all over the place, looking a bit goofy, prone to gangliness, unsure of themselves, and often with a neglected, somewhat forlorn air which only adds to their charms. Take this fellow below. You walk into the …

Looking at the floors of St. Mark’s Basilica, Venice. I sometimes come across fierce debates on the internet about whether mosaic making is an art or a craft. Think of Andy Goldsworthy’s works in stone versus Maggy Howarth‘s pebble mosaics. But does it really matter? Drifting around St. Mark’s in Venice recently, captivated …

Visiting St. Mark’s Basilica, Venice. If you go to St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice – or rather if you go and have the patience or dogged energy to join a queue that snakes across the square, inching forward in the relentless sun, and don’t decide that a cappuccino in the …

Ravenna Mosaics: Rhapsodies What was I on about? How on earth could I have thought, even for one milli second, that Ravenna wasn’t the place for me? That the acknowledged Mecca of mosaics with church domes and walls heaving with the most astonishing brilliance and detail, should somehow leave me cold …